Fortunately, there were no complications following the operation, and the patient's condition was improving steadily, if slowly, over the next few days. McCoy, of course, still spent long hours in sickbay, wanting to be close by, in case something happened. Although Jenny strongly suspected that it was also quite a welcome pretext for the doctor to excuse himself from most of the dinners and parties in honour of their guests. She knew how Leonard detested his dress uniform, which was a shame really, since she thought he looked rather hot wearing it.

With all the meetings and social gatherings she had to attend, Jenny was rather busy, too. So she didn't see much of McCoy at all, one of them usually already dead to the world by the time the other climbed into bed, or back on duty before the other woke up again. Therefore, she tried to spend as much time as possible between meetings in sickbay every day, ostensibly to do her eagerly expected rounds of entertaining and talking to patients, but really to exchange a few words with Leonard and generally be close to him.

"Come to bed, love," McCoy called her one night, when he'd left sickbay early and found her still awake and chewing over some glitch in the translator's programme.

"Just a couple more minutes, Leonard, I'm almost done," Jenny replied, longing to fall into bed and his loving arms already, but sensing that the solution to her problem was almost within her grasp.

"What's so urgent that you still have to work on it this late at night, anyway?" the doctor asked, coming to stand behind her, tenderly kissing the top of her head and giving her tense shoulders a gentle massage.

"Mmmmmh," Jenny moaned, closing her eyes, momentarily distracted by his skilled hands, and relaxing against his chest. "There's a glitch in my latest upgrade, and I can't seem to fix it. But I'm nearly there, I can feel it."

"Anything else you can feel, love?" McCoy murmured close to her ear, breaking her concentration and sending a shiver down her spine. "It's not like this is life or death urgent, is it?"

That stung a little.

"No, Leonard, it's not. Unlike your job, mine seldom is. But it's still important to me."

"I'm sorry, love," McCoy's fingers ceased their gentle motions, and his tone went from playful to sincerely apologetic. "I didn't mean to belittle your job. That came out all wrong. You know that I'm fascinated by what you do. I admire your work greatly!"

"It's ok, you can stop now," Jenny laughed, shutting down the computer and turning around to face the doctor.

Of course, he'd never disparage her work, she thought affectionately, as she got up and put her hands on his hips to guide him over to the bed, backwards.

"We both know that what you do is far more important and admirable. And I'm very grateful and proud that you're such a gifted physician."

"You think I was just trying to placate you?" McCoy asked in between covering her face with gentle kisses. "No, Jenny, I meant it. You're amazing."

When his legs hit the bed, he plopped down and rolled onto his back, pulling her with him, and soon all thoughts of jobs and glitches were forgotten, as she lost herself in his tender ministrations.

-x-x-x-x-x-

"You know, nobody's expecting you to keep up your honorary shifts in sickbay, now that you have a full-time job, love. Especially not at a busy time like this," McCoy told Hope later, as they were lying on rumpled sheets, her warm and relaxed body nestled comfortably in his arms. "I don't want you having to work through the night for your real job, just to keep my patients happy. Even Dr. Jennifer Hope needs to rest now and then."

He smiled, listening to the little sighs of pleasure that accompanied every stroke of his hand, as he ran his fingers lightly up and down her back. McCoy loved the cuddling and talking in bed, another one of those things he'd completely failed to appreciate before Hope. He loved the closeness, the intimacy of it. Getting to see a side of her that no one else ever saw. Especially after they'd made love and she was all drowsy looks and languid movements.

"But I love sickbay," she purred, reaching out a hand to play with the hair on his chest. "I've always enjoyed working there. Besides, I want to see you, be close to you."

Cuddling and talking after making love was also the time when Hope dropped her shields, affording McCoy rare and precious glimpses of the vulnerable girl hiding behind all the strength, efficiency, and energetic cheerfulness. It helped him look out for her, give her what she really needed. But this time, her words had struck a nerve. This was about what had ruined his previous relationships.

"Do you really feel you need to come to sickbay to see me, love?" he asked quietly, not quite able to hide his uneasiness. "Am I neglecting you?"

"Neglecting me?" Hope repeated, sounding genuinely surprised, and McCoy let out a soft sigh of relief.

"Not at all, Leonard, whatever gave you that idea?" she laughed before continuing in a more serious tone, as she copped on to why the thought bothered him so much. "I simply love to be around you every chance I get. But that doesn't mean I feel neglected when you're at work."

McCoy had rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow, so that he could search her face closely. But he detected no trace of disappointment or reproach in her eyes. Only love and happiness. A happiness he still found hard to believe he had helped to put there.

"There's so much going on in my life, Leonard, with work, with my friends, I certainly don't need you to babysit or entertain me. I just love you. And I certainly don't feel neglected right now," she chuckled, giving him a naughty wink before pulling his head down for a passionate kiss.

-x-x-x-x-x-

A week later, the Enterprise arrived at their next destination, Trias, a small planet full of valuable resources and prepared to negotiate a treaty with the Federation. Kirk's orders were to escort the ambassadors and ensure their safety throughout the negotiations and their sojourn on Trias. The captain's original plan had been to take only Spock and Hope, as well as a security detail of six, but now that one of the ambassadors was still convalescent, McCoy had to be included in the landing party, too.

Not that the doctor would mind, Kirk thought with a grin, amused by how Bones' attitude towards getting picked for landing parties had changed since Hope was in most of them.

Conforming to protocol, the captain had the security detail beam down first to secure the area, then followed with his officers. The ambassadors would only be transported down after Kirk's final all clear.

Materialising in a vast clearing, surrounded be huge trees, the captain spun around and tried to take in every detail as quickly as possible, like he'd been trained to do. They hadn't got a lot of information on Trias and its population so far, and Kirk didn't like surprises. One thing they'd been told already, was that the planet sported what would appear to be dinosaurs among its wildlife, and the captain had to admit that the boy in him felt almost disappointed at not spotting one right away.

He felt a little different about it, however, when, right at that moment, the forest seemed to come to life with roaring animal sounds. Especially, since the expected welcome committee obviously hadn't arrived yet.

-x-x-x-x-x-

McCoy couldn't believe his ears. They'd come here to negotiate, not to go on a safari. Or get trampled by a herd of angry dinosaurs.

Why couldn't anything ever just be straightforward?

Within moments, the doctor found himself surrounded by his crewmates, their backs towards him, phasers drawn. When attacked or in danger, Starfleet officers had been trained to form a circle, facing outwards and keeping the medic protected in their middle. It was standard procedure and made sense, although McCoy always felt bad hiding behind his crewmates. With Hope around, he found it particularly hard, every fibre in his body screaming that it should be the other way around, that he should be the one protecting her.

He had, however, learned not to voice such thoughts in Hope's presence. She was very touchy on the subject, probably because she'd spent the first twenty years of her life in a world that still treated women as weak and inferior. Hard to imagine really. As he saw it, he was always protective, and especially of loved ones, because it was in his nature, what had made him become a doctor in the first place, just like she longed for security, because she had lost her family and everything else that gave her stability at such a young age. Nothing to do with being male or female.

But since it was one of the few issues Hope still had with her past, he cut her some slack when she overcompensated. No matter how much he knew she liked feeling safe and protected when it was just the two of them, the moment she went into Starfleet officer mode, she was nothing but tough and efficient, and he respected that.

His mind was jolted back to the present, when a few giant dinosaur heads, that looked very much like the real thing, popped out of the woods. His eyes shifted to Hope's back, tense like a cat's before it pounced, but before he could decide on whether or not he really gave a damn about protocol, there was a sizzling and hissing in the air, as the animals were repelled by some kind of forcefield, almost as if there was a fence between them and the clearing.

Watching the spectacle before them in awe, the officers let out a collective breath of relief, as grips on phasers loosened and backs relaxed. McCoy stepped to Hope's side, taking in how mesmerised she seemed by the creatures.

"This is 'Jurassic Park'," she whispered, her eyes glued to the scene. "Incredible. My little students would have had a field day here."

"What little students?" the doctor asked, perplexed, watching a shadow of confusion crossing Hope's face, too.

"Just saying that little kids in my time were absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs," she eventually explained, her smile looking strained.

But before McCoy could question her any further, several hovercars came whizzing towards them. Apparently, their welcome committee had finally arrived.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Jenny was grateful for the diversion. What was wrong with her? Why did she keep saying things that made absolutely no sense? And in situations that definitely required her to have all her wits about her, too? If this kept happening, she'd have no choice but to tell McCoy. Keeping it a secret would be irresponsible. Although she genuinely didn't feel as if it impaired her performance as a Starfleet officer in any way. She'd think about all of this later, after the mission. Now was not the time to question her abilities.

The Trians stepping out of the hovercars looked a bit like Terran orang-utans, which struck Jenny as an amusing contrast to their very slick vehicles. They came hurrying towards them, arms outstretched in greeting and apologising profusely for the delay that had enabled the Starfleet officers' surprise encounter with the dinosaurs.

"They are mostly quite harmless creatures," the leader of the local representatives, Pa-T-Ric, reassured them, after Kirk and he had made the introductions. "They can be found all over Trias, but all populated areas are shielded off by forcefield fences like this. There is really nothing to worry about."

"I see," Kirk replied carefully, obviously not prepared to give up a healthy mistrust just yet. "And why did we have to meet here, quite obviously not in one of your more populated areas?"

"We wanted to keep the negotiations under the radar for now," Pa-T-Ric smiled. "Not everyone on this planet is pro-Federation. Quite a few would rather not share our resources. So we chose this safe, secluded location, a place our government often uses as a retreat to discuss long and difficult decisions."

"Forgive my curiosity," Kirk smiled back, and Jenny was once again impressed by the captain's easy way of talking to complete strangers, aliens he'd never met before. "But I still don't understand why we had to beam to this clearing. Wouldn't it have been more convenient to beam directly to your 'safe, secluded location'?"

"Ah, but Captain," Pa-T-Ric chuckled. "This is exactly what makes this location so safe. No one can beam in or out of there within a radius of five kilometres."

As she listened to the conversation, Jenny was happy to see the translator working so smoothly and felt a little proud about it. She loved how it even managed to convert measuring units to relatable scales. She'd come well prepared, using every bit of information she'd been able to find about Trias in advance. Thankfully, she'd also been able to fix the latest glitch in time. It had actually been Uhura, who'd helped her solve the problem in a flash of genius. Much as she appreciated her team, nothing compared to the 'linguistic chats' she so often had with Uhura.

-x-x-x-x-x-

When Kirk was satisfied that the place was safe enough, he had Scotty beam down the ambassadors, and the group climbed into the hovercars for the short journey, Kirk making sure that every party included one of his department heads and at least one security officer.

The government retreat turned out to be a curious blend of cottage and castle, very grand and spacious, yet somehow in harmony with nature. There was a big buffet laid out on low tables laden with all kinds of colourful fruit, berries and nuts, carefully decorated with leaves and grass. Or maybe they were there to be eaten, too.

Spock and McCoy discreetly scanned the food, but apparently the Trians had done their homework on the Federation. Everything on offer was safe to eat for all species present. For once, things really seemed to move along smoothly.